


ready for the sparks to fly

by 1000_directions



Category: One Direction (Band), X Factor (UK) RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Found Family, Gen, Judge Louis, King of the X Factor, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 19:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17710046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000_directions/pseuds/1000_directions
Summary: “Good to see you, lad,” Louis greets Dermot the first day back on the X Factor set, the same way he’d talk to anyone he knows a little and likes well enough. He’s caught pleasantly off-guard when Dermot laughs loudly and throws his head back and then gathers up Louis in his arms for a big squeeze, ruffling his hair madly before he lets go.“Wouldn’t have thought I’d ever be one of the lads with Tommo,” Dermot says, and his grin is infectious, and Louis catches it, feels his own eyes crinkling up as he returns the smile while smoothing his mussed fringe. “Good to have you back, mate. Well done, you.”Louis goes home.





	ready for the sparks to fly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dearmrsawyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearmrsawyer/gifts).



> This is for my most wonderful Jamila! The X Factor was a gift that I am so glad I got to experience with you. Happy birthday 💚💚

It’s been a long time since “home” meant just one place to Louis Tomlinson. The word still conjures up a vague image of a house in Donny, but he hasn’t been back in yonks, and no one he loves even lives there anymore. Home becomes his bunk on a tourbus. The sound of his girlfriend’s voice over the phone. Yorkshire tea with milk and no sugar. The way his mum used to stroke her thumb over his upper arm when she pulled him in for a cuddle. The weight of Cliff’s head on his thigh when his dopey sweetheart of a dog is sleeping beside him. Freddie saying “Hi Dad!” with his sharp American accent. A pint in his hand and Oli’s arm slung around his shoulders. A late night call with Niall when they haven’t talked in far too long but still fall back into their old comfortable rhythm as easy as breathing. Home is people and things and smells and tastes, scattered all over the globe like breadcrumbs he left to find his way back there someday.

So when he accepts the job at X Factor and films the first live show with all the same old musical stingers and screens and Simon and Dermot and all sorts of other familiar faces, he isn’t expecting the nostalgia to take away his breath the way it does. He hasn’t been a twenty-year-old finalist in a long, long time, but something about returning feels like _home_ in a way most places just don’t anymore.

“Good to see you, lad,” he greets Dermot the first day back on set, the same way he’d talk to anyone he knows a little and likes well enough. He’s caught pleasantly off-guard when Dermot laughs loudly and throws his head back and then gathers up Louis in his arms for a big squeeze, ruffling his hair madly before he lets go.

“Wouldn’t have thought I’d ever be one of the lads with Tommo,” Dermot says, and his grin is infectious, and Louis catches it, feels his own eyes crinkling up as he returns the smile while smoothing his mussed fringe. “Good to have you back, mate. Well done, you.”

“Cheers, cheers,” Louis says, ducking his head a little. By now, he’s mostly accustomed to the adulation and respect from the fans and from interviewers sucking up to him, but it’s still surreal to have people he used to consider mentors treating him like a peer. “I’m bricking it, to be honest, but it’s alright. I’ll give it a go then.”

“You’ll be brilliant,” Dermot says, and his smile softens as his voice gets sincere. “You understand what it’s like more than anyone else in that room. You’re a secret weapon.”

“Don’t know about all that, but I’ll do me best.”

“You’ll be brilliant,” Dermot says again, and he rubs his knuckles against Louis’ upper arm.

And then Krystle is suddenly behind him, whinging about how she has to do his hair all over again, and someone pulls Dermot away for make-up, and it’s all just a beautiful blur, honestly. But Dermot’s right. It’s bloody brilliant.

All the days start to run together. There’s no such thing as morning anymore. There’s no such thing as Thursday or Saturday. There is X Factor time and sleep time. There is the night of the live shows and the nights leading up to it.

He sleeps at the X Factor house more often than not. At first, he’s on the couch, but he eventually ends up in the beds of eliminated contestants. It had seemed far too morbid early on, but the longer the show lasts, the more worn out he gets, and he’s finally able to crawl into a bottom bunk and pull the blankets to his neck without worrying about whether Bella will be okay and if he’d been too harsh on her, whether he’d ruined her life or saved it or had no impact whatsoever. He’s tired enough to turn that off, and he sleeps like the dead in someone else’s grave.

Some part of him is secretly hoping that all three finalists will be his boys. His good lads who have worked so hard and made him so proud. They’re so hungry for mentoring, and he gives them every last bit of himself. He wants to manifest their dreams for them through sheer willpower.

But then Brendan gets eliminated, and it fucking smarts. He wanted it so badly -- they both had -- and it wasn’t enough. Being talented and working hard and fucking _wanting_ it still couldn’t turn it out, and that’s the nature of the business, and Louis knew that going into this. He knew there could only be one champion and so, so many talented people who just weren’t going to quite make it. He _knows_ , because he was one of them, wasn’t he? But his heart shatters for Brendan, and then he’s supposed to go right back into it, split his love two ways instead of three, and he doesn’t know if he’s strong enough for that.

It’s so hard to excise the part of him that still wants Brendan to be a legend. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to turn it off this time.

He doesn’t think he can sleep at the house tonight, can’t bear to be in that atmosphere. But it’s already half-one, and Eleanor has told him not to come home past midnight ‘cos the dogs get all riled up and then no one sleeps and everyone’s routine is bollocksed.

He could call Simon, but he knows what Simon will say: he’s too close to the lads, he needs distance and professionalism. He can care about them, but he can’t let it consume him. He’ll never survive in this business unless he finds a way to love them all just a little less. And Louis doesn’t want to fucking hear that right now, even if he knows it’s true.

He could call Dermot. He never has before, but there’s no reason he couldn’t. And he’s so bloody tired that he’s almost falling over, so fuck it. The worst he can say is no, and then Louis can find a hotel for the next six hours before he’s up and doing it all over again.

Dermot answers on the second ring, and his voice has a husky, quiet quality, the way people tend to talk at night when they’re settled but not yet asleep. And he says of course, come on over, he and Dee will fix up a bed for him. Dermot texts the address, and Louis orders a car, and thirty-odd minutes later, he’s being dropped off at an unfamiliar street in Primrose Hill.

Dermot meets him at the door with a small smile and a big hug, and Louis just closes his eyes and sinks into it and tries not to cry. He’s been taking care of all of them, and he realises that he’s been wanting someone to take care of him without knowing how to ask for it.

“I tried,” Louis whispers. If he talks any louder, he might actually cry, and he isn’t going to let himself do that. “I gave it me all, I did.”

“You didn’t let him down,” Dermot says quietly, and Louis swallows hard and doesn’t say anything. Dermot’s hand is moving in small circles over his back, like he’s smoothing Louis down to something raw and even and better. “You did right by him, mate.”

“Doesn’t feel that way.”

“That’s because you’re so bloody hard on yourself,” Dermot murmurs. “Could smack you upside the head for it, but I think you’ve probably beat yourself up worse than that already.”

“Could do with a smack upside the head,” Louis says with a sniffle. “Give my brain a wallop. Maybe it would help.”

“Not tonight,” Dermot says simply. He squeezes Louis again, and then he pulls back with a warm smile. “I’ll save that for when you’re feeling right again. For now, let’s have a cuppa and get you to bed. Do you mind cats? We have loads of cats.”

Louis does normally quite mind cats, and if he had known about them before, he might not have called Dermot. He’s glad he didn’t know. He’s glad he’s here.

“What kind of tea have you got in?” Louis asks, even though he does mostly stick to coffee these days. “Haven’t got Yorkshire, I suppose?”

“I’m strictly a PG Tips Earl Grey man,” Dermot says seriously, then bursts out laughing when he sees the horrified look on Louis’ face. “Just pulling your leg, mate. We’ll find you something. Fix you right up.”

“Cheers,” Louis says with a yawn, following Dermot inside. “Shit, I’m knackered.”

“You’re alright,” Dermot says. “We’ll get some tea in you and put you to bed.”

“Thank you,” Louis says. “For letting me stay here. For the tea. All of it.”

“Never a problem, mate.”

There’s a warmth to Dermot’s smile that’s so deep, it can’t be contained by just this one interaction. It’s rooted down into history, spanning years and careers and continents and lifetimes. It’s a smile that a kind presenter would give to a young nervous lad before he sang on live telly for the first time. It’s a smile that friends would exchange when one of them has had a rubbish day.

“Come on, then,” Dermot says, draping his arm around Louis’ shoulders and giving him a fond cuddle that soothes him inside and out. “My home is yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](http://1000-directions.tumblr.com/post/182670727649/ready-for-the-sparks-to-fly-by-1000-directions-for)


End file.
